


suncatcher

by Chillykins



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chillykins/pseuds/Chillykins
Summary: The war is over, and Marianne returns to Garreg Mach to think about what comes next. It's a strange idea, isn't it? Having a future?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: In Time’s Flow





	suncatcher

**Author's Note:**

> this was one of my pieces for in time's flow, a fe3h fan album put together by some incredible people! you can find the album for free download here: https://fe3hfm.bandcamp.com/album/in-times-flow
> 
> special shoutouts to twitter users @jennifercrowart for the art and @redamantianfor the track! oh to be at peace like marianne. you can find me @longestyeehaw

It’s a trip she’s made many times, but Marianne can’t remember her footsteps ever feeling so light as she walks to the courtyard of Garreg Mach. Her boots soon leave the stone floor for grass, where some flowers and weeds still stick up from the ground. With the benches and trees left mostly untouched by the war, it’s almost as if she’s stepped back in time.

Her adoptive father, proud of her accomplishments during the war, wants her to return home. Without any other ideas, she agrees. The route takes her past the monastery, and she’d felt compelled to stop. There’s no rush in returning to her town, and Garreg Mach holds the best memories of her life. She can’t turn down the chance to reminisce a little, something she is still learning to do.

What could she reminisce about before arriving at the Academy? All she knew was fear and guilt and self-hatred. But now she remembers her classmates challenging her to grow, looking out for her, accepting her before she had even accepted herself. If not for this place, she never would have found the truth about the curse of her crest—the fact that it isn’t cursed at all. A shiver goes through Marianne at the thought of who she could have been.

Of course, that isn’t to say she fully knows who she is now. She had purpose during the war, but now what? Returning home is the first step. She can’t see any of the moves that come after and hopes she will find them, whatever they are, to continue to grow into the best version of herself. The version that the professor and her friends helped her find.

A breeze stirs her pale blue hair as she nears her destination. There. The monastery took heavy damage during the war, but she’s pleased and relieved to find her favorite part of the courtyard intact. It’s one of the far corners, where she’d been more likely to find solitude. Students tended to flock to the places closer to the doors they’d come out from. More than that, being bordered by two solid walls made her feel safer, less exposed. Neither matter as much today, but she still feels the connection to her past self.

From here, by the tree and the bench, she can barely see any of the lingering rubble. It’s funny, standing in a place where nothing seems to have changed and knowing that everything is different.

At a high-pitched noise, she glances up. A bird perches on a branch nearby, gazing at her as it trills a few notes. The pale yellow belly and dark back...it looks much like the ones she used to talk to when she came out to the courtyard as a student.

“Hello,” she says in her soft tone. “You all must have been lonely with most of the activity in the monastery gone.”

It chirps in response.

“Yes, I missed you too. But I’m glad you weren’t caught up in the fighting. It was no place for a bird.” She pauses. “It wasn’t a place for me either, but I think I still made a difference.” At another chirp, she giggles. “Yes, I suppose it is difficult to imagine me in a war, isn’t it?”

This time, the bird merely ruffles its feathers, tucking its beak under a wing to preen. Never one to fill silence with unnecessary words, Marianne watches. What would it be like to be a bird? Do they have to worry about their futures, or is it simply instinct that guides them from place to place? If nothing else, surely they don’t feel pressured to have a purpose. Perhaps the purpose of a bird is to simply...exist. And be the best bird it can be.

If her adoptive father has no plans for her, if she can’t come up with any in the future, she wonders if she can find satisfaction in that. In focusing on nothing but living with a lighter heart, without a concrete role like she’d held as a student at the Academy or a healer on the battlefield. Her friends always tell her to focus on the present, smiling, being kinder to herself. They’ll likely tell her that living is a purpose all on its own, won’t they.

She’s grateful to be alive (imagine that, after how she’d felt for most of her life), and that her former Golden Deer classmates are as well. Some students from the other houses weren’t as lucky. If she’d been from somewhere else, or decided to join a different class, those students could have been her friends. Even so, it’s difficult to comprehend that people her age, people she occupied the monastery with, are dead. It could have been her.

But she’d made it through, which is why she’s here, able to appreciate nature. Though she has always loved being with plants and animals—more so than people, in many cases—she’ll never forget how much of a gift it is to be able to do so. A glimpse of a beautiful flower or a distant bird song during the five years of war had been a welcome break from the sight of bodies and the sound of battle cries and screams of agony. At the memories, her pulse quickens.

The bird chirps again, done with its preening. Just like on the battlefield, nature interrupts her spinning thoughts. Instead of being a temporary pause, though, Marianne is given time to return fully to peace. All the time she can ever desire, even. A soft smile takes over her face as the bird’s head tilts. This time when it opens its beak, it sings. The tune washes over her, and she sits down. 

“Oh, please, don’t mind me,” she says, when the bird goes quiet at the movement. “I just thought I would like to stay out here with you longer than I had planned to.”

It considers her, then starts up its song again. Off in the distance, other birds offer up their own calls. Somewhere between alone and in good company, her thoughts drift once more.

Not knowing what the future holds is a scary thought. What if it all goes wrong? If she reverts to her old self, loses all she’s gained over these five years? But even if she does, she still has the support of friends that she hadn’t had before. If the days ahead hold darkness—and she suspects they will, as it’s a simple fact of life—she will have lights to look to. Both external and internal. 

Marianne remembers what it was like to live in fear. Not just of the future, but the present. She has no desire to return there. No, she will appreciate the present and await her future with a tentative hope, because she  _ has _ a future now. Something that on many days she didn’t think she would ever have—or didn’t even know if she wanted. Whatever it brings, whether with a firm route or not, it will be hers. 

She closes her eyes and simply breathes, the sun a gentle warmth on her face as the birds sing.


End file.
